Not satisfied! That is the theme of the National Rifle Association – not satisfied until every U.S. citizen is packing heat everywhere and anytime. The gun control advocates are not surprised. The Supreme Court’s rulings on Heller and McDonald, an activist’s decision which made new law, redefined the Second Amendment as an individual’s “right to keep and bear arms” for self-defense in the home. The NRA hopes to widen the scope so that gun totters may bear a loaded firearm in public.
The Court spoke of the “inherent right of self-defense,” but rulings by judges since have read those decisions narrowly. Judges across the country have said the “core right” to a gun is limited to the home, not on your person or in your car. The Court rejected the gun lobby’s “any gun, for anybody, anywhere” agenda.
Jonathan Lowry, director of legal action for The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence said, “The gun lobby has tried to expand [the Second Amendment] into a broad right to carry any type of gun anywhere. And they have been almost unanimously rejected by the courts.” However Lowry conceded “this battle is far from over.”
Justice Scalia said the history of the Second Amendment shows it “guarantees the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” Then he modifies that by stating, “there is no right to carry any weapon in any manner.” In California a major aspect of this battle is about concealed weapons permits as our state believes the power of this decision should be in the hands of local law enforcement who require permitseekers to show “good cause” that they face a specific danger that justifies carrying a concealed weapon. Therefore, California is a “may issue” state, one of only ten in the nation. All other states are “shall issue” meaning a legal gun owner wanting a concealed weapons permit “shall” get one. Federal judges in San Diego and Yolo counties have rejected suits from law abiding gun owners who were denied concealed weapons permits. U.S. District Judge Morrison England ruled, “The Second Amendment does not create a fundamental right to carry a concealed weapon in public.”
A recent challenge to California’s concealed carry law was rejected by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. In Peruta v. County of San Diego, the Court held that the county’s application of the “good cause” requirement was constitutional. The Legal Community Against Violence provided technical expertise and support to San Diego County counsel and expects to file an amicus brief in support of the county when thisdecision is appealed.
State judges in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York have recently ruled there is no constitutional right to carry a gun for self defense. U.S. Judge J. Harvey Wilkinson, a conservative on the 4th Circuit bench, wrote, “This is serious business. We do not wish to be even minutely responsible for some tragic act of mayhem because in the peace of our judicial chambers we miscalculated as to Second Amendment rights.”
The NRA’s dreams that District of Columbia v. Heller would result in a free-for-all that would arm all America has so far been soundly rejected. Instead, the NRA’s litigation has led to a host of well-reasoned decisions from Republican-appointed judges upholding strong gun laws. Ironically, the NRA recently complained in an e-mail to its members that it’s facing “a series of Second Amendment disasters,” handpicked and funded by themselves.
